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September 09, 2013

Performing The Un-performable

The 1800s composition “Vexations,” by Erik Satie, comes with a cryptic instruction to perform the piece 840 times in a row. Many thought that it couldn’t be done, but in the late 1960s, John Cage and some friends decided to give it a shot.

When French photographers Cedric Houin, aka Varial, and Fabrice Nadjari traveled to one of Afghanistan’s most arid and remote regions, they walked for three weeks and hauled their equipment on the backs of donkeys. Once in the Wakhan Corridor, a 140-mile strip bordering China, Tajikstan and Pakistan, they met people who had never seen an outsider – or a photograph. The photographers used Polaroids to instantly show them what they looked like

This week, The National Black Theatre Festival kicks off in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Poet Kwame Dawes will be there to perform his poetry set to music in a work called HOPE: Living and Loving with HIV in Jamaica. Also on the show: Bernice Johnson-Reagon on her performance at the 1963 March on Washington.